New York court to weigh legal rights of chimps

[Axulus]

A New York appeals court will consider this week whether chimpanzees are entitled to “legal personhood” in what experts say is the first case of its kind.
For Steven Wise, the lawyer behind the case involving a chimp named Tommy, it is the culmination of three decades of seeking to extend rights historically reserved for humans to other intelligent animals.
On Wednesday, a mid-level state appeals court in Albany will hear the case of the 26-year-old Tommy, who is owned by a human and lives alone in what Wise describes as a “dark, dank shed” in upstate New York.
Wise is seeking a ruling that Tommy has been unlawfully imprisoned and should be released to a chimp sanctuary in Florida.
A victory in the case could lead to a further expansion of rights for chimps and other higher-order animals, including elephants, dolphins, orcas and other non-human primates, Wise said.
“The next argument could be that Tommy … also has the right to bodily integrity, so he couldn’t be used in biomedical research,” the Boston attorney said.
Tommy’s owner, Patrick Lavery, has made the rare move of waiving his right to make an argument in the case. Lavery did not return a request for comment last week, but said when the lawsuit was filed last year that Tommy’s “shed” was a state-of-the-art $150,000 facility, and that the chimp had been on a waiting list for a primate sanctuary for three years.
An appeals court in Rochester in December will hear a similar case from Wise involving a chimp named Kiko. State judges dismissed both cases but allowed Wise to create the record necessary for an appeal.
Wise is using a legal mechanism traditionally filed on behalf of people, usually prison inmates, who claim they have been unlawfully imprisoned.
Although there are hundreds of captive chimps in the United States, Wise said he thought Tommy and Kiko would make compelling subjects because they lived alone in conditions he said were clearly unfit for a chimp.
The bid to secure legal rights for animals has been criticized by some prominent legal experts, including U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Posner and New York University law professor Richard Epstein.
If animals gain rights once reserved for humans, courts would be inundated with tricky legal questions that could spawn a series of novel and potentially contradictory rulings, they say.

http://newsdaily.com/2014/10/new-york-court-to-weigh-legal-rights-of-chimps/#jKlSlKJHwwdF4qQj.99

Will be an interesting case.

 

[ZiprHead]

Sounds like a stupid case and a waste of court time and public funds to me.

 

[barbos]

I think George W. Bush should have legal rights.

 

[Nexus]

If legal constructs like corporations can be persons so could chimps.

 

[laughing dog]

The bid to secure legal rights for animals has been criticized by some prominent legal experts, including U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Posner and New York University law professor Richard Epstein.
If animals gain rights once reserved for humans, courts would be inundated with tricky legal questions that could spawn a series of novel and potentially contradictory rulings, they say.

What a ridiculous argument: since doing what is morally right or legal is too complicated or potentially burdensome, we should simply continue the status quo. Posner and Epstein should be ashamed of themselves.

 

[Axulus]

Sounds like a stupid case and a waste of court time and public funds to me.

It's the extension of legal protections to non-humans beyond simple animal cruelty laws. If some non-humans have intellectual capabilities (intelligence, self-awareness, ability to consciously suffer, ability to plan and form goals, etc.) then perhaps it is worth having a discussion on what kind of legal protections they are entitled to.

 

[Axulus]

The bid to secure legal rights for animals has been criticized by some prominent legal experts, including U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Posner and New York University law professor Richard Epstein.
If animals gain rights once reserved for humans, courts would be inundated with tricky legal questions that could spawn a series of novel and potentially contradictory rulings, they say.

What a ridiculous argument: since doing what is morally right or legal is too complicated or potentially burdensome, we should simply continue the status quo. Posner and Epstein should be ashamed of themselves.

Agreed. Additionally, don't animals already have some rights once reserved for humans? They have a right to not have humans inflict intentional cruelty and suffering upon them via animal cruelty laws. This case seems to be a look at what additional rights, if any, they are entitled to. It also doesn't necessarily mean that they are entitled to all the same rights humans have. It could be that they are entitled to some additional rights but not every right.

 

[Sabine Grant]

Axulus, from what I gathered it has to do with imprisonment of highly sentient species. Such as chimps and I will assume great apes are next. Can we consider that such highly sentient species should be protected from being imprisoned? It may even extend to the protection of dolphins which would include orcas. Of course if such ruling were to pass, it would impact the detention of a variety of highly sentient species in attraction parks (Seaworld comes to mind)and zoos. As well as people who keep chimps as pets.

 

[arkirk]

The bid to secure legal rights for animals has been criticized by some prominent legal experts, including U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Posner and New York University law professor Richard Epstein.
If animals gain rights once reserved for humans, courts would be inundated with tricky legal questions that could spawn a series of novel and potentially contradictory rulings, they say.

What a ridiculous argument: since doing what is morally right or legal is too complicated or potentially burdensome, we should simply continue the status quo. Posner and Epstein should be ashamed of themselves.

I didn't think I would weigh in on this one, but I think you are right, Laughing Dog. It is the narcissism of our species that is most likely to destroy us. People who spend their lifetimes seeking and later practicing becoming judges are perhaps the most narcissistic of all. Our American judiciary flies in the face of democracy. Just go to a court sometime and listen to all the restrictions these characters place on admissibility of evidence and argument and you will be watching a narrow proceeding that has absolutely nothing to do with justice. Our courts are perverse, so I don't expect they will be fair with either chimps or humans particularly, but if they are truly interested in justice, they should also care about the chimps and my laughing friend.

 

[doubtingt]

What a ridiculous argument: since doing what is morally right or legal is too complicated or potentially burdensome, we should simply continue the status quo. Posner and Epstein should be ashamed of themselves.

Agreed. Additionally, don't animals already have some rights once reserved for humans? They have a right to not have humans inflict intentional cruelty and suffering upon them via animal cruelty laws. This case seems to be a look at what additional rights, if any, they are entitled to. It also doesn't necessarily mean that they are entitled to all the same rights humans have. It could be that they are entitled to some additional rights but not every right.

Animal cruelty laws aren't really rooted in animal rights, nor should they be. We just decided that some forms of cruelty to some animals is unpleasant, so we make laws that are highly arbitrary in what action and what animals they apply to, based in no real principles but our current emotions. That may sound like an attack on cruelty laws, but it isn't. I think they can and should exist based upon our those emotions, and not on shallow pretense that the animals have "rights". Contrary to religious nonsense and the constitution, rights don't exist as real inherent properties that organism have. They are nothing but legal concepts. But yet, the stability of the law and its internal coherence requires that such a foundational concept of which human interaction is regulated by grounded in sound principles by which it it logically clear to what organisms and actions the principles apply. This cannot be done with animal and "rights" for reasons I mentioned in the other thread about it.
Rights are not about specific actions but about the organisms unforced will. Imagine I take a hole punch and painfully remove a piece of your flesh, then stick an object in there that might give you a serious infection. That has no relation to your rights in itself, but only is an issue of rights violation depending upon whether your conveyed will regarding your body is consistent or inconsistent with my actions. This gets pretty dicey when you start to include animals, and their conveyed will.

The problem gets even bigger when you start talking about rights due to "personhood" and trying to give chimps "personhood". That would give them all rights that humans have, which would make anything but setting them all free to roam the streets a criminal act of slavery, kidnapping, etc.. Also rights inherently are tied to responsibility to respect other's rights within that social contract. Animals cannot comprehend others rights thus the cannot and respect them.

 

[Axulus]

Agreed. Additionally, don't animals already have some rights once reserved for humans? They have a right to not have humans inflict intentional cruelty and suffering upon them via animal cruelty laws. This case seems to be a look at what additional rights, if any, they are entitled to. It also doesn't necessarily mean that they are entitled to all the same rights humans have. It could be that they are entitled to some additional rights but not every right.

Animal cruelty laws aren't really rooted in animal rights, nor should they be. We just decided that some forms of cruelty to some animals is unpleasant, so we make laws that are highly arbitrary in what action and what animals they apply to, based in no real principles but our current emotions. That may sound like an attack on cruelty laws, but it isn't. I think they can and should exist based upon our those emotions, and not on shallow pretense that the animals have "rights". Contrary to religious nonsense and the constitution, rights don't exist as real inherent properties that organism have. They are nothing but legal concepts. But yet, the stability of the law and its internal coherence requires that such a foundational concept of which human interaction is regulated by grounded in sound principles by which it it logically clear to what organisms and actions the principles apply. This cannot be done with animal and "rights" for reasons I mentioned in the other thread about it.
Rights are not about specific actions but about the organisms unforced will. Imagine I take a hole punch and painfully remove a piece of your flesh, then stick an object in there that might give you a serious infection. That has no relation to your rights in itself, but only is an issue of rights violation depending upon whether your conveyed will regarding your body is consistent or inconsistent with my actions. This gets pretty dicey when you start to include animals, and their conveyed will.

The problem gets even bigger when you start talking about rights due to "personhood" and trying to give chimps "personhood". That would give them all rights that humans have, which would make anything but setting them all free to roam the streets a criminal act of slavery, kidnapping, etc.. Also rights inherently are tied to responsibility to respect other's rights within that social contract. Animals cannot comprehend others rights thus the cannot and respect them.

I don't understand your last point. Minor children have "personhood" rights, yet forcing them to live with their non abusive parents under their rules is not an act of slavery, kidnapping, etc. Very young children also cannot comprehend others' rights and thus they cannot respect them either.

 

[laughing dog]

Agreed. Additionally, don't animals already have some rights once reserved for humans? They have a right to not have humans inflict intentional cruelty and suffering upon them via animal cruelty laws. This case seems to be a look at what additional rights, if any, they are entitled to. It also doesn't necessarily mean that they are entitled to all the same rights humans have. It could be that they are entitled to some additional rights but not every right.

Animal cruelty laws aren't really rooted in animal rights, nor should they be. We just decided that some forms of cruelty to some animals is unpleasant, so we make laws that are highly arbitrary in what action and what animals they apply to, based in no real principles but our current emotions. That may sound like an attack on cruelty laws, but it isn't. I think they can and should exist based upon our those emotions, and not on shallow pretense that the animals have "rights".

Rights are granted and enforced by the people through gov't. So, of course, animals can have rights. Whether animals ought to have rights and the nature of those rights are different questions.

 

[doubtingt]

Animal cruelty laws aren't really rooted in animal rights, nor should they be. We just decided that some forms of cruelty to some animals is unpleasant, so we make laws that are highly arbitrary in what action and what animals they apply to, based in no real principles but our current emotions. That may sound like an attack on cruelty laws, but it isn't. I think they can and should exist based upon our those emotions, and not on shallow pretense that the animals have "rights". Contrary to religious nonsense and the constitution, rights don't exist as real inherent properties that organism have. They are nothing but legal concepts. But yet, the stability of the law and its internal coherence requires that such a foundational concept of which human interaction is regulated by grounded in sound principles by which it it logically clear to what organisms and actions the principles apply. This cannot be done with animal and "rights" for reasons I mentioned in the other thread about it.
Rights are not about specific actions but about the organisms unforced will. Imagine I take a hole punch and painfully remove a piece of your flesh, then stick an object in there that might give you a serious infection. That has no relation to your rights in itself, but only is an issue of rights violation depending upon whether your conveyed will regarding your body is consistent or inconsistent with my actions. This gets pretty dicey when you start to include animals, and their conveyed will.

The problem gets even bigger when you start talking about rights due to "personhood" and trying to give chimps "personhood". That would give them all rights that humans have, which would make anything but setting them all free to roam the streets a criminal act of slavery, kidnapping, etc.. Also rights inherently are tied to responsibility to respect other's rights within that social contract. Animals cannot comprehend others rights thus the cannot and respect them.

I don't understand your last point. Minor children have "personhood" rights, yet forcing them to live with their non abusive parents under their rules is not an act of slavery, kidnapping, etc. Very young children also cannot comprehend others' rights and thus they cannot respect them either.

I largely addressed this in the other thread on this case over in "Morals and Principles". Here is a slightly expanded version of what I said over there:

Ethical rights and responsibilities are two sides of a coin, and lesser responsibility due to inability to understand the rules comes with lesser rights. We even apply this to children, who precisely because we view them as less able at the time to fully understand the rules are held less responsible for their actions, and also have fewer rights of self-determination and liberty. Things done to kids that 99.9% of adults are fine with would be considered kidnapping, wrongful imprisonment, slavery, and theft if done to any adult (and that includes just the things that the most permissive and non-spanking type of parents do). It not slavery, etc. with children because slavery relates to a concept of rights of self-determination, and despite all warm and fuzzy notions, the law does not recognize children as full persons with full human rights. They are a kind of proto-person combined with owned property of the biological parent or legal guardian. The fact that they will naturally become a person with full rights under the law puts some limits on extreme behaviors with presumed long term harm, but the parents can still do countless things that are bad or harmful and against the child's will, and the law will say "its none of our business".

The severely disabled humans also cannot understand the rules, but they are are tiny fraction and are still categorized within the human group to which the principle of rights generally applies. Also, they have legal guardians, and typically are like children in terms of lacking the same full rights that legal personhood implies. We can do call them persons, but they do not in actual fact have the full rights that other legally recognized persons have (and again, the law does not fully recognize children under 18 as being equal persons to adults).

Rights are granted and enforced by the people through gov't. So, of course, animals can have rights. Whether animals ought to have rights and the nature of those rights are different questions.

You are using "rights" in a way that is synonymous with "protective laws". They aren't the same thing. Laws that protect things from harm are just the specific ordinances. We can and have made up absurd, philosophically untethered, and arbitrary laws. We can just write a law saying that it is illegal to chew gum on Wednesday. But rights are more than specific ordinances. They are also deeper philosophical principles and conceptual abstractions. It is this level of abstract principles that allow for using legal precident to determine that even though X action is not explicitly illegal, it violates the principle on which a law or other case decision was rooted. On what principle is it that it is okay to eat cows but not dogs?

 

[Axulus]

I don't understand your last point. Minor children have "personhood" rights, yet forcing them to live with their non abusive parents under their rules is not an act of slavery, kidnapping, etc. Very young children also cannot comprehend others' rights and thus they cannot respect them either.

I largely addressed this in the other thread on this case over in "Morals and Principles". Here is a slightly expanded version of what I said over there:

Ethical rights and responsibilities are two sides of a coin, and lesser responsibility due to inability to understand the rules comes with lesser rights. We even apply this to children, who precisely because we view them as less able at the time to fully understand the rules are held less responsible for their actions, and also have fewer rights of self-determination and liberty. Things done to kids that 99.9% of adults are fine with would be considered kidnapping, wrongful imprisonment, slavery, and theft if done to any adult (and that includes just the things that the most permissive and non-spanking type of parents do). It not slavery, etc. with children because slavery relates to a concept of rights of self-determination, and despite all warm and fuzzy notions, the law does not recognize children as full persons with full human rights. They are a kind of proto-person combined with owned property of the biological parent or legal guardian. The fact that they will naturally become a person with full rights under the law puts some limits on extreme behaviors with presumed long term harm, but the parents can still do countless things that are bad or harmful and against the child's will, and the law will say "its none of our business".

The severely disabled humans also cannot understand the rules, but they are are tiny fraction and are still categorized within the human group to which the principle of rights generally applies. Also, they have legal guardians, and typically are like children in terms of lacking the same full rights that legal personhood implies. We can do call them persons, but they do not in actual fact have the full rights that other legally recognized persons have (and again, the law does not fully recognize children under 18 as being equal persons to adults).

Rights are granted and enforced by the people through gov't. So, of course, animals can have rights. Whether animals ought to have rights and the nature of those rights are different questions.

You are using "rights" in a way that is synonymous with "protective laws". They aren't the same thing. Laws that protect things from harm are just the specific ordinances. We can and have made up absurd, philosophically untethered, and arbitrary laws. We can just write a law saying that it is illegal to chew gum on Wednesday. But rights are more than specific ordinances. They are also deeper philosophical principles and conceptual abstractions. It is this level of abstract principles that allow for using legal precident to determine that even though X action is not explicitly illegal, it violates the principle on which a law or other case decision was rooted. On what principle is it that it is okay to eat cows but not dogs?

I don't think anyone is arguing that chimps or other intelligent animals should have full rights equivalent to humans or persons. This lawsuit certainly isn't suggesting that. More akin to the proto-person rights that you suggest above in regards to children. I'm thinking more so along the lines of rights to be free from potentially harmful medical experimentation and free from deleterious living conditions imposed by humans (in addition to the cruelty laws that already exist).

 

[laughing dog]

You are using "rights" in a way that is synonymous with "protective laws".

Nope.

They aren't the same thing. Laws that protect things from harm are just the specific ordinances. We can and have made up absurd, philosophically untethered, and arbitrary laws. We can just write a law saying that it is illegal to chew gum on Wednesday. But rights are more than specific ordinances. They are also deeper philosophical principles and conceptual abstractions. It is this level of abstract principles that allow for using legal precident to determine that even though X action is not explicitly illegal, it violates the principle on which a law or other case decision was rooted.

Thank you for the lesson. Are you under the idea that "deeper philosophical principles and conceptual abstractions " cannot apply to animals?

On what principle is it that it is okay to eat cows but not dogs?

I don't know why anyone would think that is relevant to the discussion at all. It would be like interjecting "On what principle is okay to kill first degree murderers but not rapists?"

 

[doubtingt]

Nope

Yep. The fact that you don't realize it is because you don't understand the difference.

They aren't the same thing. Laws that protect things from harm are just the specific ordinances. We can and have made up absurd, philosophically untethered, and arbitrary laws. We can just write a law saying that it is illegal to chew gum on Wednesday. But rights are more than specific ordinances. They are also deeper philosophical principles and conceptual abstractions. It is this level of abstract principles that allow for using legal precident to determine that even though X action is not explicitly illegal, it violates the principle on which a law or other case decision was rooted.

Thank you for the lesson. Are you under the idea that "deeper philosophical principles and conceptual abstractions " cannot apply to animals?

No, I am under the impression (confirmed by your own statements) that those arguing for the rights of "personhood" for chimps don't understand the philosophical grounding of the concept of rights and personhood, and have given it no more thought than "Let's write the sentence 'Chimps are people' and have government sign it into law."

On what principle is it that it is okay to eat cows but not dogs?

I don't know why anyone would think that is relevant to the discussion at all.

I know you don't know why, because you don't understand what ethical and legal principles are, or grasp how they are critical for internal coherence and application of precedent.

It would be like interjecting "On what principle is okay to kill first degree murderers but not rapists?"

No, it is nothing like that. Cats and cows are equally harmed by eating them and are equal in whatever "will" they have and thus in whatever violation of will eating them entails. There is also no basis for distinguishing them on the degree to which they are "persons" to whom rights should apply. The rules protecting cats more than cows have zero basis in notion of rights. Cats are legally protected only because our arbitrary whim wants them protected for our own selfish purposes. "We like them, so you can't kill them" is the sole basis of such laws. It is because it upsets people, not because cats are persons.

In contrast, murders and rapists both harm the will of humans. Murder utterly destroys and permanently eliminates a person will over their own person. A person's will and their exercise of it over their own person is what all "rights" emanate from. Thus, murder is the greatest violation of rights possible. Rape is a more temporary and less severe attack (short of total destruction) of a person's will and thus of their rights. Thus, the legal principle is quite straightforwardly that a greater violation of another's will and thus human rights warrants a greater punishment.
OF course we could also decide to kill both murderers and rapists on the grounds that the violation of will for either is above the acceptable threshold for a person to be allowed to exist. However, where that threshold was set and what acts were and were not punishable by death would need to be argued based upon principles of degree of harm and violation of will and thus human rights. Such principles are the only reason why there is any coherence and predictability to the law and punishments. Otherwise, if everyone was as devoid of consideration of philosophical principles as you, laws would be random and at the arbitrary whim of either an authority or current feelings of the majority. Playing heavy metal would be as likely to get you the death penalty as genocide. In fact that is what you find in authoritarian systems where laws are the baseless decrees of people's emotional whims.
In representative democracies where public justifications of laws is required to have principled coherence with each other and constitutional ideas, you get less of that. Though sometimes it still happens if the authorities can get the public to share their emotional whims. This is the case in the US with regard to drug use. The total lack of harm to anyone else's will or rights are what make these laws absurd and incoherent with the principles that do in fact govern our laws more generally. This lack of principled basis in the violation of will is why these laws are the most violated, inconsistently enforced, unstable and are being phased out. Lack of principled justification produces lack of stability and respect for the law. If laws start throwing around notions of rights and personhood and attaching them arbitrarily and inconsistently to some animals and not others, as your position logically entails, then it threatens the stability and respect for the notion of rights itself.

 

[doubtingt]

I don't think anyone is arguing that chimps or other intelligent animals should have full rights equivalent to humans or persons. This lawsuit certainly isn't suggesting that.

The OP said that the suit is seeking "legal personhood" status for chimps. That concepts actually means something, and it is more then just "rights" but also "duties".
They cannot just assert that chimps have "legal personhood" but then redefine the concept and say "well, we don't mean 90% of what that concept has entailed within the law as applied to humans, just a couple very narrowly prescribed legal protections from cruelty." That waters down and undermines the principle of personhood in general. It is a dangerous game of broadening and thus making more vague and less meaningful legal concepts in order to try and transfer protections that exist already to new things.

More akin to the proto-person rights that you suggest above in regards to children.

But, it wouldn't be close to what exists for children, and there is a principled justification for including children, namely that they are inherently participants of the very human societies for which these legal concepts were created, and nearly all will become full persons will full autonomy and full rights. Chimps never will.

Also, children have limit rights, but also legal responsibilities because the concepts are inherently tied and both part of legal "personhood". Two kids each have proto-personhood which means they are expected to and required to respect each others as persons. A kid hurts another kid, and the first kid is subject to punishment and/or temporary restriction of rights. Will chimps that hurt people or other chimps be put in a form of juvi?

It would have to end the capture of all chimps, and mean the immediate release of all chimps deemed capable of self-sufficiency. Anything short of that would be the equivalent of kidnapping a child. The whole point of "rights" and "personhood" is about personal control and will over oneself.

I'm thinking more so along the lines of rights to be free from potentially harmful medical experimentation and free from deleterious living conditions imposed by humans (in addition to the cruelty laws that already exist).

And that is great, but it isn't close to the concept of "personhood", and isn't really rooted in the principle of the right to willfully determine where and what is done to one's person. For example, anything that is a "person" cannot be involved in any form of research no matter how harmless without informed consent. You don't seem to want to give them that much protection, only protection from potentially harmful experimentation. Also, people have the right to consent to potentially harmful experimentation, but you don't want to give chimps that right, because they cannot consent, because they are not persons. So, why go through they pretense of declaring them persons with rights, when we don't really mean it and just want to use it as rhetorical cover to give them legal protections from abuse?

We don't need to distort and abuse those vital and foundational concepts in order to grant chimps these protections. IOW, we don't need to declare "they are persons with the right not to be harmed", in order to protect them.

We don't disagree much on the actual concrete ways in which chimps should get more protections than they currently do. But you cannot just declare that a specific protection stems from some "right", because a right (along with personhood is rooted in deeper assumptions that if held would require they have many more rights and protections than the specific ones you have in mind. Its better to have arbitrary specific protections for certain animals and certain acts than to try and mess with the notions of rights and personhood in ways that make those arbitrary and unprincipled notions.

 

[laughing dog]

Yep. The fact that you don't realize it is because you don't understand the difference.

Your confidence in your ability to read mind is unwarranted.

No, I am under the impression (confirmed by your own statements) that those arguing for the rights of "personhood" for chimps don't understand the philosophical grounding of the concept of rights and personhood, and have given it no more thought than "Let's write the sentence 'Chimps are people' and have government sign it into law."

Wrong again. Do you realize that your basically rebutted your entire argument with the "No"?

I know you don't know why, because you don't understand what ethical and legal principles are, or grasp how they are critical for internal coherence and application of precedent.

You really cannot read minds. Wrong again.

No, it is nothing like that.......

Expanding on an irrelevant argument does not make it more relevant.

OF course we could also decide to kill both murderers and rapists on the grounds that the violation of will for either is above the acceptable threshold for a person to be allowed to exist. However, where that threshold was set and what acts were and were not punishable by death would need to be argued based upon principles of degree of harm and violation of will and thus human rights. Such principles are the only reason why there is any coherence and predictability to the law and punishments. Otherwise, if everyone was as devoid of consideration of philosophical principles as you, laws would be random and at the arbitrary whim of either an authority or current feelings of the majority. Playing heavy metal would be as likely to get you the death penalty as genocide. In fact that is what you find in authoritarian systems where laws are the baseless decrees of people's emotional whims.
In representative democracies where public justifications of laws is required to have principled coherence with each other and constitutional ideas, you get less of that. Though sometimes it still happens if the authorities can get the public to share their emotional whims. This is the case in the US with regard to drug use. The total lack of harm to anyone else's will or rights are what make these laws absurd and incoherent with the principles that do in fact govern our laws more generally. This lack of principled basis in the violation of will is why these laws are the most violated, inconsistently enforced, unstable and are being phased out. Lack of principled justification produces lack of stability and respect for the law. If laws start throwing around notions of rights and personhood and attaching them arbitrarily and inconsistently to some animals and not others, as your position logically entails, then it threatens the stability and respect for the notion of rights itself.

Laws already arbitrarily distinguish among people and the world has not come to end. So, your argument is, once gain, unconvincing.